Sweet Autumn Clematis

Clematis paniculata

     Sweet Autumn  Clematis is a controversial plant. Botanists cannot even agree on what its Latin name is. Besides C. paniculata, other candidates for the plant include C. terniflora and C. maximowicziana (seriously!).

     This vine has many champions for many good reasons. It is a robust grower; it seems to thrive on neglect (for us lazy gardeners); and it even blooms in the shade. Best of all, you can train it to climb over any ugly spot you have in the yard. And it has a lovely perfume in bloom. There are few plants in the garden as spectacularly beautiful in September.

     Alas, our Sweet Autumn has her detractors as well. For one thing, she arrived here from Japan in 1864. That is well before many of us arrived here, but it still does not make her a native. Most of us plant people have nothing against "foreign" plants -- as long as they don't escape the garden and begin competing with our native species in the wild. Sweet Autumn is not on Chicago Botanic Garden's invasive list. It is, however, a "robust" grower. One expert describes it as "extremely vigorous to the point of
viciousness."

     I have worked with one of these vines for 10 years or more, and I had to dig it up and relocate it about 5 years ago. It was easy to transplant and, after a tenuous first year, re-established itself in new territory. In all that time I found it both pretty and well behaved. This year, however, it really took off and began scrambling all over the ruin of an old wooden play set. This is exactly what my client wanted to happen. Vigorous growth does not seem to be a problem so long as you know that you have to train the plant, prune ruthlessly in late winter and then chop away over the season. Planting in partial shade will also slow it down and give us lazy people time to react when it grows where we don't want it.

     The other new development this year, however, was the appearance of new seedlings in various parts of the yard -- including some that were trying to climb up the AC units. So much for the lazy gardener. This year, at least, I will have to be on the alert to remove these uninvited guests before they get established. Still, one year of aggravation out of ten is not so bad, and my client's "ruin" looks gorgeous.

     But don't say that I didn't warn you.